Norseman #6969 7483750615

The workhorse Titanium, 6AL4V, also known as ASTM Grade 5 Titanium, offers an incredible combination of high strength, light weight, and corrosion resistance, making it a world standard for use in the aerospace industry. We take advantage of this incredible material to make our knife handles and pocket clips, providing lifelong durability to these components. As a bonus, this material can be electro-anodized to a multitude of colours, as well as being a great substrate for all PVD coatings. We offer our USA sourced titanium in a wide variety of finishes and coatings.

Named after world famous knife maker Robert W Loveless, this steel has been a staple in our stable since our genesis. RWL34 is a patented ultra clean Powder Metallurgy product from Damasteel. Made in Söderfors, Sweden, a town that holds over 300 years of steel-making tradition, this stainless PM steel strikes a great balance of hardness and toughness which equates to an incredible balance of wear resistance and durability, while being easy for the user to maintain for a lifetime. We heat treat this steel to a 60-61 HRC and offer multiple finishes.

Originally designed as a stainless razor steel, Uddeholm developed AEB-L to have very fine carbide size for wear resistance, coupled with small grain size to provide incredible toughness. Because of these developments, this steel is still used today as a tough stainless blade steel. Because of these mechanical properties, AEB-L works perfectly for our blade lock inserts, providing a corrosion free lifetime of durable blade lockup, with minimal wear.

Also known as AISI Grade 630, stainless steel alloy 17-4PH is a precipitation hardening stainless steel which has high strength and hardness, combined with good ductility and toughness. It has excellent corrosion resistance, approaching that of stainless steel grade 304. We machine our components from 17-4PH bar which is heat treated to 45 HRC. Machining components in this hardened state leads to better dimensional stability and provides a beautiful, low friction surface finish. These properties make 17-4PH the perfect material for the the pivots of our knives, providing a lifetime of smooth blade deployment with minimal maintenance. 

We exclusively use CoorsTek Cerbec NBD200 Grade 3 ceramic bearings in all our products. These are the highest quality bearings available. Cerbec bearing balls are produced in the USA utilising high-purity raw silicon nitride materials with highly controlled milling preparation to guarantee consistent chemistry and particle size. The bearings are manufactured using Hot Isostatic Press (HIP) densification for proper microstructural development — resulting in greater hardness, toughness, and less rolling contact fatigue. They are then precision lapped for consistent geometry, surface finish, and surface quality. The bearings we use have a diameter tolerance less than .0002mm (.0000078”), surface roughness less than .001 of a micron, and sphericity of less than 0.022 of a micron. These ultra high quality bearings ensure lifelong use of our mechanisms without lubricants.